on the rocks
by silver replies
Summary: A sasusaku in seven scenes: of absence and overwhelming distance, lukewarm afternoon tea, and a quiet, persistent love. Sasuke, Sakura, and their wordless marriage. Post-canon.


_on the rocks_: a sasusaku in seven scenes

I.

In the number of tiles on the kitchen counter; in the smooth expanse of peeling wallpaper covering the three inches of thin wall; in the small circumference of the coffee table that separates her chair (life) and his in the morning; this is how Sakura measures the distance between her and her husband. Wax poetic, romantic Sakura sometimes measures the distance in more abstract things: ignored welcomes, forgotten birthdays, hours/days/weeks/months spent alone. She's more mournful than bitter and this reflects in her face; Sakura is a grim character, mouth always drawn back in a tight frown. She is rather melancholic. People whisper behind her back often, pitiful. They call her the young widow, the young widow Sakura. They say that her heart has gone cold and that her husband has never smiled at her, but they are only half-right. Sakura's heart, though worn from maltreatment, will never lose its capacity to love.

It's not that Sakura is completely lugubrious when contemplating her marriage, not at all. The content silences over afternoon tea and the simple, impeccably made, but rare dinners are enough for her. Sakura was always aware that her ending with Sasuke was not a guaranteed happy one, but loving Sasuke is something as essential to Sakura's existence as healing/fighting/breathing. He is worth it; this is the mantra she repeats in her head as she feigns delight when Ino tells her that she is expecting and Naruto lovingly caresses Hinata's gentle hand. He is worth it, she thinks as she opens the door to their small apartment and steps into the still darkness. The full moon is visible from the living room's window, which is cracked open slightly to let in the cool summer breeze. It is not unexpected. This is merely another evening in solitude for Sakura and it is nothing compared to the three wasted years of her adolescence.

She leans against the kitchen counter in exhaustion and sighs. The water for her tea boils; the kettle whistles; the number of tiles is infinite.

II.

Sakura and Sasuke do not fight, but this is more attributed to a lack of interaction rather than a lack of conflict. If Sakura had the energy or the courage to fight, she'd yell at him and scream profanities, demand his attention and throw explosive tantrums. However, Sakura is tired, as she always is - so she bites her tongue and swallows her complaints, tucks her picturesque dreams of having a family away, hides them somewhere between memories of her youth and her vitality. She characterizes her conversations with her husband as one-sided incessant babbling. Her ramblings are evasive, without purpose. Where were you these past three weeks? she wants to ask, but doesn't. Where are you now? she wants to ask as she looks at her husband with candid affection, only to be returned by a blank, empty stare.

Sakura questions his humanity.

She settles on a half-hearted good afternoon and smiles sweetly at his grunt of acknowledgment. Sasuke has always been a stolid figure, but in moments like these before sunset, he retains a boyish charm that Sakura desperately longs for and cherishes. His hair, always messy, sticks up in random places; his expression is soft rather than biting in the light of a dying sun. His wife looks at him and sees a twelve-year old genin with a superiority complex and a misplaced vendetta, sees the boy she fell in love with, sees Sasuke-kun. She spares him one last glance before standing up to organize the ample amount of paperwork associated with running a hospital. If he notices, he doesn't show it; he appears to be distracted by something in the distance, something that Sakura can't see, something that Sakura will never be able to reach.

It is painful loving someone like Sasuke in the way it is agonizing to love someone who lives in the past while she is struggling to maintain the present and hope for the future, but he is Sasuke and she is Sakura and she knows, secretly, that there is a part of him, too, that is still Sasuke-kun.

III.

They sleep in separate bedrooms. She never becomes familiar with the shared warmth of marriage and the feel of her husband's body wrapped around her, so she never misses it.

IV.

Sakura's morning is very routine. She wakes up at exactly five on the left side of the bed, throws her legs over the side and opens her bedroom window to let the cold air rush in. She uses the restroom before padding to the kitchen to make tea for two and sets the table with two cups, one chipped at its mouth, the other sporting a shallow crack in its side. Then, she waits. If her husband does not come, she shrugs the disappointment off and leaves the kettle on the stove just in case. If he does, she wastes a few minutes to sit with him and enjoy his barely-offered company before changing into her medic clothes and walking to the hospital.

Sasuke also has morning rituals. These involve lighting candles for his family at the small altar in his room and hanging his mother's favorite flowers on the side as an offering. He then joins his wife at the table out of obligation and sips gingerly on her brew of aromatic tea. Tea with her in the morning is different than tea in the afternoon; in the afternoon, Sakura is persistent in filling the space between them with sound of empty conversation. In the morning, she is more reserved, more withdrawn - more lovely. She wears her long hair in a casual bun. Sasuke appreciates the pale skin of the nape of her neck, appreciates the pleasant curl of her still-damp hair. Watching Sakura in the morning is his favorite ritual.

He hasn't been caught yet.

V.

Sasuke laughs at Sakura sometimes, but that is to be expected in marriage.

It is almost endearing.

VI.

Sasuke doesn't love her, but the fault does not lie with Sakura. Sasuke is not capable of loving someone. He is not fit to love a woman like Sakura and he is not deserving of the affection that she is so keen to give him. He does not enjoy torturing her with his indifference, but it cannot be helped. Sasuke tells himself that there will be a day when he can come to care for her properly and he will be able to offer her more than a lonely apartment and moments over lukewarm tea, but that day is not today, and it is not tomorrow nor is it the day after or the day after that. It is not a month from today or even a year from today; perhaps it will never come.

Sasuke doesn't love her, but when he listens to her sing softly to herself while making breakfast or peers into her bedroom to see her arms embracing the pillow on the right side of her bed or sees her tracing patterns on the faded corduroy in the couch in their living room, he begins to doubt himself.

The smell of burning incense is still heavy in the air.

VII.

Drinking is a bad habit that Sakura never thought she'd pick up from her mentor, but when her surgeries fail and she can't save everyone and it's her third month, second day, and tenth hour alone, she needs it.

She pours liquor into her glass and the substance spills over the two cubes of ice sitting at the bottom. As she takes her poison, she ponders why she finds more comfort in the company of alcohol than she does in the company of her husband.

He doesn't come.


End file.
